>"Better to just oppose all bailouts for all sectors, always."
This is exactly the line of thought that turned the Wall Street crash into the Great Depression, which we learned from and did not repeat in 2008. The answer lies somewhere in the middle.
That's the logic that led to "Let's just let Lehman fail" and precipitated the 2008 crash. At scale, markets are not zero sum and failures sink all boats.
There are no good answers here. But pointing fingers and assigning blame is for sure one of the worst ways to do the analysis.
I don't doubt that there are possible bailouts with potential net positive outcomes, just that legislatures are capable of distinguishing them with an overall net positive outcome. Or that the benefits would outweigh the moral hazard of becoming reliant on them.
I agree that there aren't any "silver bullets", but I think there are some decent pieces of regulation like, forced splits between investment banking and commercial banking, and heavy regulation of high risk markets, especially when it comes to inclusion in retirement funds etc.
Those aren't going to single-handedly solve the boom bust cycle, but they are amongst other similar policies, a bunch of levers than governments can use if they want to in order to shield the public from risks caused by financial speculation.
> At scale, markets are not zero sum and failures sink all boats.
At scale, this boats sink somewhere, not disappeared into the void. And yeas, markets are not zero sum, amount of goods may increase and may decrease, and we should let agents that decrease them fail.
Lehman failed because of the 2008 crisis; its failure did not cause or precipitate it. Even Wikipedia lays it out in the opening summary (emphasis mine):
> “A liquidity crisis spread to global institutions by mid-2007 and climaxed with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008…”
Letting Lehamn fail was the right call, because it allowed the Fed to bulldoze TARP through and save the wider economy as a result. If anything, I would say the subsequent bailouts were too generous in letting the companies retain controls and returns; the government should’ve kept a permanent, partially-nationalized control of those shares and added them to a sovereign wealth fund instead of selling them back on the market. “You fucked up so bad the entire system almost failed, so clearly you cannot be trusted to self-govern” should’ve been the unambiguous messaging from the Fed.
Late to the game, but I have to call out your shameless cherry picking. That elipsis in your wikipedia quote skips: "which triggered a stock market crash and bank runs in several countries." I mean, dude...
Yes, obviously, the subprime crisis was long in the making and has deep root causes. But the bank runs of 2008 and the frozen global financial system were 100% preventable, as they were a confidence shock (not a fundamentals thing) stemming from the sudden uncertainty due to Lehman.
A little assistance from the Bush administration in 2008 would have very plausibly produced a much softer landing and required a lot fewer bailouts overall. This really isn't controversial.
"Let them fail" is almost always the worst thing to do.
Eh, no. The reality is that we are still paying for unresolved issues from 2008 crash. If anything, each time we kick the can, the worse the next iteration will be.
> reality is that we are still paying for unresolved issues from 2008 crash
Because it was a mess. Compare it with the bank failures in 2023. Shareholders wiped out, multiple collapses, yet many people have forgotten it even happened.
>"Better to just oppose all bailouts for all sectors, always."
This is exactly the line of thought that turned the Wall Street crash into the Great Depression, which we learned from and did not repeat in 2008. The answer lies somewhere in the middle.
Most of world did worse in 2008. The bailout worked in the US
That's the logic that led to "Let's just let Lehman fail" and precipitated the 2008 crash. At scale, markets are not zero sum and failures sink all boats.
There are no good answers here. But pointing fingers and assigning blame is for sure one of the worst ways to do the analysis.
I don't doubt that there are possible bailouts with potential net positive outcomes, just that legislatures are capable of distinguishing them with an overall net positive outcome. Or that the benefits would outweigh the moral hazard of becoming reliant on them.
> There are no good answers here
I agree that there aren't any "silver bullets", but I think there are some decent pieces of regulation like, forced splits between investment banking and commercial banking, and heavy regulation of high risk markets, especially when it comes to inclusion in retirement funds etc.
Those aren't going to single-handedly solve the boom bust cycle, but they are amongst other similar policies, a bunch of levers than governments can use if they want to in order to shield the public from risks caused by financial speculation.
> At scale, markets are not zero sum and failures sink all boats.
At scale, this boats sink somewhere, not disappeared into the void. And yeas, markets are not zero sum, amount of goods may increase and may decrease, and we should let agents that decrease them fail.
Lehman failed because of the 2008 crisis; its failure did not cause or precipitate it. Even Wikipedia lays it out in the opening summary (emphasis mine):
> “A liquidity crisis spread to global institutions by mid-2007 and climaxed with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008…”
Letting Lehamn fail was the right call, because it allowed the Fed to bulldoze TARP through and save the wider economy as a result. If anything, I would say the subsequent bailouts were too generous in letting the companies retain controls and returns; the government should’ve kept a permanent, partially-nationalized control of those shares and added them to a sovereign wealth fund instead of selling them back on the market. “You fucked up so bad the entire system almost failed, so clearly you cannot be trusted to self-govern” should’ve been the unambiguous messaging from the Fed.
Late to the game, but I have to call out your shameless cherry picking. That elipsis in your wikipedia quote skips: "which triggered a stock market crash and bank runs in several countries." I mean, dude...
Yes, obviously, the subprime crisis was long in the making and has deep root causes. But the bank runs of 2008 and the frozen global financial system were 100% preventable, as they were a confidence shock (not a fundamentals thing) stemming from the sudden uncertainty due to Lehman.
A little assistance from the Bush administration in 2008 would have very plausibly produced a much softer landing and required a lot fewer bailouts overall. This really isn't controversial.
"Let them fail" is almost always the worst thing to do.
Eh, no. The reality is that we are still paying for unresolved issues from 2008 crash. If anything, each time we kick the can, the worse the next iteration will be.
> reality is that we are still paying for unresolved issues from 2008 crash
Because it was a mess. Compare it with the bank failures in 2023. Shareholders wiped out, multiple collapses, yet many people have forgotten it even happened.